Think Well

Discover the truth about how your body really works and how Chiropractic can help you Optimize your Health & Life!  What is health? Where does it come from? What determines your health and how can you achieve it? What three things must you have in order to be healthy?  I’m Dr. Paul N. Siemers with CNC Chiropractic and each Thursday at 6pm we are going to be answering these fundamental questions about how you can obtain great health and more.  The workshop is complimentary with the only exception being that you call ahead to reserve a seat.  Call us at 507-663-6006 and bring a friend. We look forward to sharing the simple truth.

Have you seen the Edina Clinic parking lot in Northfield lately?  I drove by today after an early meeting to see it almost filled to capacity at 8:15am.  I wasn’t thinking “Wow… They must be good” although I’m sure they are, I was, as I have been for over twenty years, trying to understand what it is that so many people are looking for. Just this week I placed a quote in the office for all of our practice members to see by Marriane Williamson. She says, “We don’t reach the light by endless analysis of the dark. We reach the light by choosing the light.”  I love this because with the change of a couple words, you can begin to identify what is really happening to so many people with regards to their search for health.  “We don’t reach health by endless analysis of disease. We reach health by choosing health.”  I know, it seems far too simple considering the Merck Manual, volume 17, a book of all currently known and identified diseases is three inches thick with over 2700 pages.  The fact is however, regardless of how many names we can come up with, all of these diseases simply represent the body adapting ‘perfectly,’ yes perfectly, given the environment in which it is placed. 

What!  Yes, I mean perfectly.  Pick and choose a disease, any disease and you will see that the symptoms that lead us to a diagnosis are simply the body’s attempts to tell us we are either toxic or deficient.  We’ve been poisoning our body with too much of something (most of us innately know what this is) or denying it the basic fundamental building material to restore improve and nurture health… the second fundamental principle to a life well lived.  I believe, to answer the question I so often ask while driving by that parking lot, we seek ‘health.’  People… you, me, our friends, family, neighbors, we just want to live a full life and no matter how we slice it, that requires ‘health.’  With this realization, I begin to understand that there is much for me to do;  seeing that full parking lot reminds me of my commitment to help others attain the full and complete expression of health through the restoration of a Clear Neurological Connection.

There are some who would argue that I personally am neither but that’s beside the point. This question, I hope, will encourage you to consider there’s a distinct difference, regardless of intention, that has become quite blurred if not outright lost in our daily lives.

What is average and what is normal?  Lets take 98.6 for example; most people have come to understand this as the “normal” human body temperature however truth be told, it’s an average.  One of the first attempts to determine an average was done by Dr. Carl Wunderlich in 1861 and impressively enough included recording the core body temperature of one million people.  Since then, his recorded ‘average’ of 37 degrees Celsius has been converted to a ‘normal’ 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  This conversion does not unfortunately take into account age, sex, metabolism, time of day, activity and many other factors that continually influence the brains regulation of our body’s core temperature.

Subtle as it may seem, converting averages to normal can have profound affects on the way we think and behave with regards to our family’s health.  Average blood pressure, cholesterol levels, hormone levels, nutritional intakes and much more soon become excuses to take medications or supplements that risk life and limb in our vain attempts to be “normal.”  What’s normal for you may not be normal for me or anyone else for that matter.  A better approach, and one I continually take in our office, is to ask why?  Sticking with the example of temperature, why is it higher or lower than average?  If your body is fighting an infection and raising the core body temperature in an attempt to heal, you certainly don’t want to interfere and make restoring health more difficult whereas if the body temperature is high because you’ve been working all day in the heat without keeping hydrated, you would be prudent to drink lots of water before suffering from heat stroke.  

Anytime you see your doctor or consider questions about your health, take the time to ask yourself why?  The answer will open the door to understanding the cause and understanding the cause opens the door to answer what, if anything, do I do to assist my body in expanding physical mental and spiritual well being.